The Secretary stated to the schoolmaster how the object was, to send to him for certain occasional evening instruction, a youth whom Mr and Mrs Boffin wished to help to an industrious and useful place in life. The schoolmaster was willing to undertake the charge of such a pupil. The Secretary inquired on what terms?
The schoolmaster stated on what terms. Agreed and disposed of.
'May I ask, sir,' said Bradley Headstone, 'to whose good opinion Iowe a recommendation to you?'
'You should know that I am not the principal here. I am Mr Boffin's Secretary. Mr Boffin is a gentleman who inherited a property of which you may have heard some public mention; the Harmon property.'
'Mr Harmon,' said Bradley: who would have been a great deal more at a loss than he was, if he had known to whom he spoke:
'was murdered and found in the river.'
'Was murdered and found in the river.'
'It was not--'
'No,' interposed the Secretary, smiling, 'it was not he who recommended you. Mr Boffin heard of you through a certain Mr Lightwood. I think you know Mr Lightwood, or know of him?'
'I know as much of him as I wish to know, sir. I have no acquaintance with Mr Lightwood, and I desire none. I have no objection to Mr Lightwood, but I have a particular objection to some of Mr Lightwood's friends--in short, to one of Mr Lightwood's friends. His great friend.'
He could hardly get the words out, even then and there, so fierce did he grow (though keeping himself down with infinite pains of repression), when the careless and contemptuous bearing of Eugene Wrayburn rose before his mind.
The Secretary saw there was a strong feeling here on some sore point, and he would have made a diversion from it, but for Bradley's holding to it in his cumbersome way.
'I have no objection to mention the friend by name,' he said, doggedly. 'The person I object to, is Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'
The Secretary remembered him. In his disturbed recollection of that night when he was striving against the drugged drink, there was but a dim image of Eugene's person; but he remembered his name, and his manner of speaking, and how he had gone with them to view the body, and where he had stood, and what he had said.
'Pray, Mr Headstone, what is the name,' he asked, again trying to make a diversion, 'of young Hexam's sister?'
'Her name is Lizzie,' said the schoolmaster, with a strong contraction of his whole face.
'She is a young woman of a remarkable character; is she not?'
'She is sufficiently remarkable to be very superior to Mr Eugene Wrayburn--though an ordinary person might be that,' said the schoolmaster; 'and I hope you will not think it impertinent in me, sir, to ask why you put the two names together?'
'By mere accident,' returned the Secretary. 'Observing that Mr Wrayburn was a disagreeable subject with you, I tried to get away from it: though not very successfully, it would appear.'
'Do you know Mr Wrayburn, sir?'
'No.'
'Then perhaps the names cannot be put together on the authority of any representation of his?'
'Certainly not.'
'I took the liberty to ask,' said Bradley, after casting his eyes on the ground, 'because he is capable of making any representation, in the swaggering levity of his insolence. I--I hope you will not misunderstand me, sir. I--I am much interested in this brother and sister, and the subject awakens very strong feelings within me.
Very, very, strong feelings.' With a shaking hand, Bradley took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.
The Secretary thought, as he glanced at the schoolmaster's face, that he had opened a channel here indeed, and that it was an unexpectedly dark and deep and stormy one, and difficult to sound. All at once, in the midst of his turbulent emotions, Bradley stopped and seemed to challenge his look. Much as though he suddenly asked him, 'What do you see in me?'
'The brother, young Hexam, was your real recommendation here,' said the Secretary, quietly going back to the point; 'Mr and Mrs Boffin happening to know, through Mr Lightwood, that he was your pupil. Anything that I ask respecting the brother and sister, or either of them, I ask for myself out of my own interest in the subject, and not in my official character, or on Mr Boffin's behalf.
How I come to be interested, I need not explain. You know the father's connection with the discovery of Mr Harmon's body.'
'Sir,' replied Bradley, very restlessly indeed, 'I know all the circumstances of that case.'
'Pray tell me, Mr Headstone,' said the Secretary. 'Does the sister suffer under any stigma because of the impossible accusation--groundless would be a better word--that was made against the father, and substantially withdrawn?'
'No, sir,' returned Bradley, with a kind of anger.
'I am very glad to hear it.'
'The sister,' said Bradley, separating his words over-carefully, and speaking as if he were repeating them from a book, 'suffers under no reproach that repels a man of unimpeachable character who had made for himself every step of his way in life, from placing her in his own station. I will not say, raising her to his own station; I say, placing her in it. The sister labours under no reproach, unless she should unfortunately make it for herself.
When such a man is not deterred from regarding her as his equal, and when he has convinced himself that there is no blemish on her, I think the fact must be taken to be pretty expressive.'
'And there is such a man?' said the Secretary.